The Waking (The Upturned Hourglass) (15 page)

“Well isn’t this a ‘kill-or-be-killed’ situation? If the Mark—“

“
Valie,
” Jack growled through gritted teeth. He knew Shane’s reluctant words were spoken out of fear, but if Shane thought that she could now convince him to participate in Valie’s murder or just abandon the girl to her fate, she was gravely mistaken.

“My point is if
she
isn’t killed, then
we
will be! No matter what we say, the Interlunar Council will lump us with Isaac. We’ll be nearly as criminal as he is! Who knows what they’ll do to us!”

Jack met the agitated she-wolf’s ice blue eyes with a stern gaze. “I would rather be accused of betraying my leader for the right reasons than sticking around for the wrong ones.”

Shane leaned away from him and slumped down in her chair, her eyes staring dismally at the space in front of her. Her entire body exuded the obvious misery she felt—her usually exuberant face was drawn, her hair tied messily near the crown of her head, her nails looked like they had been bitten until they bled, though it was hard to tell considering her hands were shaking uncontrollably. It was a disturbing image that Jack would not soon forget.

“Why her?”
Shane murmured. She did not look up. “Why
her
?”

“What do you mean?” Jack asked gently, taking a seat in a similar chair nearby.

“Why are you willing to abandon our life, our
family
for her? But you were never willing to just
stay
for….”

It was then that it all became clear; this argument wasn’t just about the risks involved in aiding Valie in her escape; it was about old wounds being reopened, wounds Jack had inflicted.

Almost one year after Shane was turned Jack had left the pack to serve the Lycanthrope army known as the Guard, effectively abandoning Shane to the mercies of their pack for almost two years.  Shane had never got on well with most of the pack members, because of the circumstances in which she’d been changed. The decision to leave her was a decision Jack had made in youth, but that did not relieve the regret he still felt over his actions.

“For you.
But I was never willing to stay for you,” Jack finished sadly. He let the words hang in the air for a moment before continuing. “Shane, why do you think I came back after two years of being away? At that council meeting, when I saw you and Noah, who had been turned only a week or so before, who hadn’t even undergone his first
Change
yet….I knew I couldn’t let the clan, let
Isaac,
burden you two with the same beliefs and responsibilities that I was loaded with. I could already see it happening to you, Shane! You would do anything Isaac told you to without question and you had only been with the pack for a couple of years! And the way everyone looked at Noah with such…
distaste
, like he was nothing but a nuisance….” Jack took a deep breathe to steady himself as he remembered. “I don’t know exactly why I came back, but I think, deep down, I just knew it was right for me to be here. Not for Isaac, but for Noah. For you. And now for Valie, who deserves a chance to
live
.”

Shane’s head snapped up, her eyes alight with a sudden anger Jack hadn’t expected. He leaned away in his seat, but didn’t otherwise flinch from her gaze. “Is
that
what you think you’re giving her? A chance to live? As
what
, Jack? She will never be accepted in our world! She will always be a half-blood, an outcast, a
mistake
. Believe me,
I
know.” Shane jumped up from her chair and, with arms crossed, began to pace the room like a caged lioness. Jack, otherwise unmoving, patiently followed her agitated movements with his eyes.

“Is that what this is about?” he asked quietly. “Shane…just because Erica was the Mark and not you….”

“Shut
up
!” she screamed. Shane picked up an old lamp that was sitting in the corner and, with an angry cry, threw it against the wall, shattering it loudly into pieces.  “Stop talking like you know me! You don’t know anything! You left! When
I
needed you, you
left
!”

Jack was on his feet now, holding his hands out as if to help the girl fuming in front of him. She looked like any minute she would either kill him or burst into tears. The she-wolf was right, he had not been a brother—or even a friend—to her in her time of need, but there had been so much more at stake.

“Yes,” he admitted. “I did leave, but do you know why?” Slowly, he walked toward Shane until he was only two feet from her. He could see the beading sweat on her neck and the whiteness of her clenched fists and he knew that this outburst had been a long time coming. “I left, because I couldn’t deal with what had happened to you. What I had
helped
Isaac to do to you.”

Shane straightened up a little and spoke through her tears in the same rehearsed tone every young Lycan did. “All Lycanthropes must aid the Fated in their quest to choose those worthy of our race.”

Jack held up a hand to silence her. “I didn’t leave because I was squeamish about changing people. I left because I no longer believed in the causes you’re so willing to quote. You’re right about one thing, though—you were a mistake. A
mistake
, Shane. Tell me how does someone who is supposed to have been chosen by Fate itself make a
mistake
like that?” Shane began to shake and new tears began to form in her eyes, but Jack went on undeterred. “
That
is why I left, Shane. Because I helped to end a young girl’s life for
no reason
. Now you want me to do it again?” His question held such appall, even Shane seemed unable to respond. To the surprise of both, she didn’t have to….

“Did you hear that?” Jack asked suddenly in a harsh whisper. He listened more intently and looked at Shane as she did the same. There it was again, the voice that Jack and Shane had, for a long time, associated with authority and guidance, the voice that now, instead of inspiring obedience and respect, froze their hearts and minds in fear.

The color from Shane’s face drained in guilty fear. “Isaac!” she gasped. She sounded as if someone had a hold of her throat, cutting off her air. Just the
sound
of Isaac’s presence had her winded and trembling. Jack wanted nothing more than to reassure her everything would be fine, that Isaac would know nothing of their conversation, but there wasn’t time. Jack grabbed Shane’s arm, pulled her to a chair to sit and signaled for her to be quiet. Without losing time, he grabbed a sheet that was draped about an old, damaged armoire and covered the smashed lamp in the corner. Just as he swept all the pieces into the corner and returned to sit on the floor a few feet in front of Shane, he heard light footsteps coming up the stairs.

Jack mouthed the words ‘play along’ to the she-wolf who could barely nod in response.

“I don’t know, Shane,” Jack said in mock doubt as he watched the door, knowing Isaac would be listening now. “I think you’re wrong.”

“A-about?”
Shane managed to stutter.

The doorknob turned slowly, creaking as it went. Jack glanced at Shane—she looked terrified. He needed to get her out of here before her expression told Isaac everything he needed to know. 

The door opened and Jack’s head snapped back to Shane before Isaac could suspect something. Jack forced himself to think of an answer to Shane’s made-up question.

“About…me.”
Shane’s fear remained. She wasn’t going to be able to keep up the charade with Isaac in the room. Jack turned quickly to Isaac to take the Fated’s eyes off of the girl. Isaac towered over the seated Jack. The long, black trench-coat over his casual suit-pants and button-down shirt seemed to elongate him even further; at this moment, he seemed like the tallest, best-dressed villain Jack would have ever imagined. “What do you think, Isaac?” he asked, buying himself more time.

Isaac examined Jack’s face carefully with his keen, amber eyes. Jack could feel he suspected something, but he remained calm.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what it is you are discussing,” Isaac finally replied. He broke his eye contact with Jack and took to the darker corner of the room where Windemere had only recently sat, where Windemere had only recently spilled all of Isaac’s secrets. “What is the question?” he asked.

Jack stood and smiled at Isaac as the man picked up a nearby book and began to finger through the pages. He looked relaxed and comfortable…deceptively so. Jack needed to steer this conversation to his advantage without raising even more suspicion from the Fated in front of him.

“Shane believes I’m…well,
infatuated
with Va—the Mark. I told her I could never fall for a human so easily, but she refuses to believe me.”

Both Isaac and Shane’s heads lifted to look at Jack questioningly.

Where did
that
come from?
Jack thought to himself. The words had popped out of his mouth thoughtlessly. The subject of inappropriate relationships must have weighed more heavily on his mind than he had realized.

For an instant, Isaac’s eyes flashed with wariness, but he quickly masked it with a genial smile. “
Are
you infatuated with our dear little Valentine? I wouldn’t blame you if that were the case. She’s quite special, that girl.”

Jack paused. “I suppose.” He shrugged, knowing he was already walking a fine line with this topic of conversation. “But still,
I
couldn’t fall for someone that quickly.”

Isaac surprised the boy by laughing loudly; the action
seemed
genuine….

“I wouldn’t be so quick to speak, my boy! Love can be truly dizzying! It can come like a whirlwind, sweep you up into its arms and whisk you around and around so fast you lose sight of all that once grounded you—the rights, the wrongs, the
possibilities and impossibilities—until all that matters is the whirlwind and the trip it takes with you. Remember that.”

“You never told me you were a romantic,” Jack said, allowing some of the skepticism he felt to color his words. How could this
monster
sit here and talk of
love
?

Jack glanced at Shane to see if she had been moved by their leader’s poetical speech. The she-wolf was looking dully at the floor. Jack didn’t even know if she was aware of the conversation any longer. He wondered where her mind had gone.
Most likely to the rights and the wrongs, the possibilities and impossibilities….

Isaac chuckled once again. “I can be, when the muse descends. I believe Plato phrased it quite nicely: ‘At the touch of love, every man becomes a poet.’”

Jack smiled demurely. “Then I am definitely
not
in love, because I am no better with words than I ever was.”

“Give it time, my boy. Give it time.”

Really?
Jack thought.
How much time does the
girl
have, Isaac?

“Terrence told me that you’re going away for a couple of days?”

Isaac’s pleasantness faded as his expression grew serious, business-like. “Yes. Two days. Three at most.”

Jack waited for more, but the Fated kept silent as he returned to flipping through the old book he held.

“You have business elsewhere?”

“Yes.”

The word and the stern look that accompanied it radiated such finality, that Jack didn’t push for more. He would have to be content with the knowledge that there was time, time that he could use to his advantage to convince Valie that she was in danger, not from himself, but from her father, a complete stranger. Just getting her to accept that fact was going to be a feat in and of itself, but, on top of that, he needed to get her to agree to run, to run away with Noah, Shane—he hoped—and himself. Terrence had been right—tomorrow
would
be a new day.

“Don’t you cubs need some rest?” Isaac suggested without looking up from the book he now read. “You will be on Mark-watch by yourselves for over forty-eight hours. I need you alert.
Nothing
is to happen to Valentine while I’m away.”

“Of course not, Isaac,” Shane unexpectedly said in a low tone from behind Jack. He turned to find her at his shoulder looking forlornly at their leader. “We’re on it. Have a good trip.” She tried to fake a smile at Jack, but, when she couldn’t manage it, she just gave one, final nod before she walked out of the room.

“Sleep well, Shane,” Jack said as he turned his back on Isaac and, through the open door, watched the girl walk down the stairs. “We’ve got quite the day ahead of us,” he continued vaguely.

“I know, Jack,” she whispered without turning. “I’m with you.”